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E 711 
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Copy 1 WILLIAM 
.\/[cKINLEY 

Late President of the 
United States 



memorial 
Address 



By JOHN SHRADY, M.D. 

Surgeon Alexander Ham- 
ilton Post, 182 G. A. R. 






^ ^/ 



L 



Read Before 

Alexander Hamilton Post 182 G. A. R. 

September 19, 1901 



By John Shrady, M.D. 

Post Surgeon. 

Comrades : 

I'n an address entitled "Medical New York in 1800," 
delivered by myself before a medical association in 
1889 — pardon my vanity, for it was commemorative some- 
what of the time of my own parents — I took occasion to 
say in part : " The present century dawned upon this 
city when the nation was in gloom. Washington, not 
many days before, had rounded oat his symmetrical 
career with a death which touched the popular heart. 
John Adams was in the presidential chair ; society was in 
its formative stage ; partisanship was bitter ; and the 
memory of a great struggle was still green. Immigration 



had not yet begun with its swet pinp tide ; the English 
■AUi] Dutch stuck, in spite of frequent intermarriages, had 
not yet become thoroughly amalgamated. The epithet 
' Tory ' with many was the word of greatest reproach ; 
• Hessian ' was a grade lower in the vocabulary, while 
the Revolutionary patriots, some of whom were in the 
sere and yellow leaf, were growing to be the idols of the 
day. The populace had hardly yet lost its awe of rank, 
which was now obliged to be content with wearing the 
more humble mask of respectability. Yet men consented 
to be led, and accepted conclusions if they only had the 
glamour of a great name. They had gained liberty, it is 
true, but it seemed a legacy as unwieldly as it was unex- 
pected. The Irish revolutionary struggle of 1798 brought 
many additions to the shores, and the Palatines, the first 
of the German immigrants, with memories of Marshal 
Turenne and their smoking villages, were beginning to 
pass into the second generation. The hardy Swiss also 
brought their thrift, their patience and their sagacity. 
There was also a leaning affection toward the French, 
and a copying of their Jacobin clubs, which began in a 
inSfient that ended in making Jefferson the third presi- 
dent of the sixteen state confederation. The knee 
breeches, cocked hats and silver buckles had begun to 

P. 

I Person)' 

20 j:/02 



give way to the red waistcoat and French pantaloon, and 
the very children began to omit, not unwillingly, their 
ceremonious courtesies to strangers. Anarchy had vir- 
tually come ; but it came to a safe race, with a Saxon 
strain and a Saxon sense of justice. 

There was a trembling, but no upheaval. All felt 
that it was the world's last grand experiment of personal 
liberty ; that man was to be trusted only once more. 
The overtopping spirit of party, which forbade friendship, 
and which as ever resorted to slander, culminated at 
length with the disgrace of Burr and the death of Hamil- 
ton on the field of honor. There was a shudder, a pause, 
and then the flame shot up again. To repeat, this was 
an age of controversy, of fierce politics and of unyielding 
dogmatism, in which the leaders were intolerant, arrogant 
and aggressive." 

All this, subject to certain parallelisms of the present, 
may carry many subjects for reflection. But since 1800, 
the year which gave title to the paper in the transactions, 
how fierce has been the velocity of the panorama ! The 
great republic has grown from a population of 3,000,000 
to nearly 80,000,000, with a dominant language spol^en 
somewhere in every community of the world. It moves 
onward by its interdependence like a London crowd ; 



it has its power of construction, but it has also its loss by 
friction ; it has its virtues and its vices, its ambitions and 
Its foils ; it elevates and it also grinds exceeding fine. But 
vvh)' pursue our metaphors, knowing, as we do, if we 
delve deeply enough that we shall tlnd the hideous fossils 
of the past, for no race or clime is without them, it is 
within the memory of us all that the vain-glory of exemp- 
tion possessing our fair land, won by " the survival of 
the fittest," has yet to learn much from the struggles of 
the past. 

Where, now, is our boast, with " the deep damnation 
of the taking off" of three presidents? Need I name 
these ? Lincoln, whose portraits even yet look out upon 
us through glistening eyes of tenderness — Garfield, the 
victim of a salary-hunter, that kept on to the very last, 
ever muttering incomprehensible epigrams. But even 
while these murderers, whose names were fast passing 
into a hazy oblivion, with a trail wiping out deluded 
followers and weeping kindred, there appears an Iscariot 
with a well-rehearsed technique and inflexible purpose, 
who came not with a kiss and a " Hail, Master," but with 
the proffered hand and the switt bullet. May we not 
truly say that a serpent stole into a paradise, as a cring- 
ing sin, an incarnation of a hideous dream, a fair-haired 



miscreant with a dramatic smile beckoning to a doom. 
Who was the victim? Was he a tyrant whose doctrine 
was that " the king can do no wrong " — a Napoleon, who 
bade his cavalry "charge for glory," over two regiments 
of his invincible infantry ; was he one who cumbered the 
earth, whimpering for a bed, which he never had the 
frugality to enjoy ; was he even one who sold 'his birth- 
right for a mess of pottage or regarded his responsibilities 
as merely a peacock's plume? 

Was he loyal to some canny oath which bound him 
to unjust deeds under vague penalties? As casuist or 
hypocrite did he ever " counsel evil that good might 
come?" Did he ever "serve the devil in the livery of 
heaven?" Cold-hearted, and with the zest of a traitor, 
was he a plotter in secret, dazzling the people with dam- 
aging theories of inequalities? Blatant in speech, did he 
promise loot to his army, empty honor to his navy, for- 
giveness of the taxes of his people or luxury to the idle? 
Let his career answer. 

Who, then, was he that had so merited a pitiful fate 
and for whom princes and potentates, peoples and nations, 
in this waning day, are rendering such simultaneous hom- 
age? Some one has said that posterity takes up not many 
echoes, for "Jordan rolls between," and its shores are 



smoothed by many feet. Will this be true of our McKin- 
ley, whose mere name is suftkient rank? 

Know ye not that Moses after many wanderings 
was accorded a sight of the promised land? Know ye not 
that our president both reverenced God and loved his 
fellow meji? 

Simon, just and devout, to whom it had been revealed 
that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's 
Christ, was accorded that blest opportunity and exclaimed, 
"Lord, nowlettest thou thy servant depart in peace accord- 
ing to thv word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 
That Saviour upon the ignominious cross also saw the 
glories of hea\en, and even uninspired Shakespeare softly 
tells Banquo that he " would not be king but should 
beget them." 

My Comrades ! Cjh we sum up the virtues of one 
whoso adorned all the walks of life? N->ed we be reminded 
that virtues are not aggressive, certainly not spectacular, 
even though some say that they are mere duties, wreak- 
ing vengeance in pathos, redressing wrongs with sobs and 
defeats in dirges? They certainly apologize as did their 
great exemplar: "Father, forgive, for they know not." 



Yet can we say that the life of our late president 
could have been altogether unhappy ? He believed in a 
divine ruler, in the republic and in its people. He never 
reasoned in the abstract ; perhaps he may have been a 
coward to his conscience, though in the best sense unen- 
snared, and therefore free of will ; and perhaps, too, the 
clear, brisk winds ha^#^ around the mountain homes of 
his ancestors, had made him oblivious of hardship and had 
given him a foretaste of the old chair near the glowing 
back log and the Bible upon his mother's knees. Perhaps 
he had found a New England expanded into an Ohio, with 
a time-honored frugality evolved into a sumptuous hospi- 
tality, its spartan virtues developed into a covenanter's 
tenacity, and, best of all, a howling wilderness grown into 
prayerful homes unmenaced by lurking foes. 

Now he himself is among the immortals, leaving the 
world nobly, grandly and with " malice toward none," 
and with no Macbeth to " murder sleep." Ever after 
" Lead Kindly Light " and " Nearer, my God, to Thee " 
will be sung with more subdued fervor and a more quiver- 
ing tremor. Mothers throughout the ages will tell the story 
of the pure life and the tragedy that convulsed the world 
all for the sake of the rank fungus expanded into a venom 
in sunny fields; a life bereft by the whim of a wretch 



claimed by no one soil, without a country, and now pro- 
tected by the very law which he despised. Can we 
prophesy that to the assassin, with his final hope in 
suicide, there can come either the crown of martyrdom or 
the crown of glory, or zchai — Oh, zchai ! But, comrades, 
what now remains to us but to " watch and pray," for 
there are warnings of the whirlwind, the lightning and the 
storm. Let us then keep snug our hatches of the Ship of 
State, for to us this is God's writing in the skies. 



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